


frost giants don't get the flu

by ala



Category: Thor - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Mischief and Mistletoe 2013
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 15:36:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ala/pseuds/ala





	frost giants don't get the flu

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nefelokokkygia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nefelokokkygia/gifts).



She stalked her prey, careful to remain downwind and hidden at all times, not an easy feat in the leafless forest covered in snow. She had been hunting her quarry all afternoon; now twilight was fast approaching and she knew she would not get another chance to get so near. Seeing the perfect opportunity she perched on a bluff above the pond and waited as her victim approached on the path below. When he was nearly below her she pounced, ready to shove handfuls of snow under the back of the heavy wool tunic, only to have his image fade the instant she touched it. She fell rather gracelessly to the ground and rolled onto her back, glaring up at Loki’s silly horned helm as his face came into view.

“Come now Sif, it’s rude to sneak up on a person, much less try to shove snow down their clothes.” He smirked, and her resolve to get him only grew.

“Trickster!” she accused. “You cheated!”

“Really Sif, a simple illusion is hardly cheating.” He appeared pensive for a moment. “Although I’m fairly certain this is.” He flicked his wrist.

Sif only had time to cry “Loki, no!” before a veritable heap of snow landed on her. She yelped rather unwarrior-like when some got below her collar and frozen water met the warm skin beneath.

Well, if he wasn’t going to play fairly neither would she. With a roar she sprung up, kicked his feet out from under him, and pushed. The sound he made as he landed face first in the pristine snow of the frozen pond warmed her heart and she couldn’t help but giggle.

“Well now that that’s over let’s head back. I’d love some warm mead.”

She turned and started back up the path that would lead to the palace.

“Honestly Sif, I don’t down why you’re so eager to have me eat snow,” he called after her. “It’s not like the cold really affects me. I suppose it’s the one good thing about being a frost gia—”

_CRACK!_

Sif whipped her head around in time to see Loki fall through the ice.

The pond wasn’t particularly deep so his helm’s ridiculous golden horns were never fully submerged, and by the time Sif made it to the shore Loki was already wading out. She was torn between laughter at the expression on his face and concern over the frigid temperatures of the pond and his sopping wet clothes.

Tearing at the clasp of her own fur cloak, she threw it over his shoulders and rubbed his arms in an attempt to warm him up.

“We need to get you back to the palace and warm and dry before you catch cold.”

He rolled his eyes.

“That’s not how illness works, Sif. And I’m a frost giant. Who has ever heard of a frost giant getting a cold?”

“Even frost giants still get sick I’m sure, and you still need to get out of those wet clothes and into something warm and dry.”

He leered down at her. “Well as long as I can get _you_ out of your clothes as well I suppose I’ll comply. And someplace warm…our bed perhaps?”

“How about a bath, and then we’ll see from there, Silvertongue.”

“Fair enough.”

~

The next afternoon Sif sprawled in front of the fire on a plush divan, with Loki at one end and Sif warming her toes under his thighs. Thor had brought her a book from Midgard— _The Art of War—_ and she was fully engaged in the words of the mortal general.

“Ahem.” Loki cleared his throat softly.

Sif lowered her reading; he hadn’t looked away from his. She turned the page and raised her book again.

“Ahem. Hrrm,” he coughed slightly, still clearing his throat.

Once again, Sif lowered her book to see he was unsubtly trying to get her attention. He still seemed engrossed in whatever was in his tome.

“Aherm,” the noise came again.

“Stop it,” she commanded, turning a page in her book.

Loki glanced up at her in surprise. “Stop what?”

“That noise.”

“What noise? Ahem.”

“ _That_ noise.”

She felt him shift to look at her directly.

“What noise?”

“You are clearing your throat every ten seconds. Have a tickle? You’re not getting sick, are you? Oh right you _can’t_.”

“My throat is a bit dry is all,” he replied snootily.

She twisted her body to grab a goblet on a nearby table and thrust it to him.

“Here, wet your throat.”

He took it and obediently swallowed several mouthfuls.

“Ah, much better, thank you.” He handed the goblet back.

Sif settled down with her book again and had almost made it to the next chapter when—

“Aherm, hem.”

Well she had no other choice: she threw the book at him, delighting in his outraged expression as it hit his shoulder. With a laugh she jumped up and raced from the room, his magic forming green sparks in the corner of her eye.

~

Before dinner in the Great Hall Sif watched him as they waited for king and queen to arrive and open the feast. Every so often his face would contort and he would pant slightly. Then he would take a deep breath and his features would smooth, only to repeat the process a minute later.

She elbowed him. “Why do you keep on making those strange faces?” she hissed.

“I’m not,” he hissed back, and covered said face with goblet as he drank. It wasn’t a minute before he started doing it again.

“There, that face!” she pointed. With his mouth open he rather looked like her horse when he caught a new scent.

“I’m,” _pant_ “not,” _pant_ “making any faces. You are imagining things.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“Are you trying to hold back a sneeze?”

“Of course not, why would I do that?”

“Because you refuse to admit that you’re getting a cold.”

“Sif, I told you. Frost giants don’t get colds.”

“Then why are you afraid to sneeze?”

“I’m not!”

She was prevented from replying by the arrival of Odin and Frigga. All stood in silence as they made their way to their table on the dais. Sif heard Loki beside her inhale.

“ _ah-CHOO!_ ”

The sneeze resounded like a cannon in the quiet hall. Many people jumped, and the dog one of the palace children had snuck in barked. All eyes turned to Loki, even Frigga’s and Odin’s.

Loki didn’t have the shame to look embarrassed, only fetched a silk handkerchief from the temporal pocket he kept it in and blew his nose. The resulting “honk” made the dog bark again, and laughter and conversation began again as soon as the king and queen were seated.

Sif pointedly raised an eyebrow at Loki.

“What were you saying?”

“By the Nine Sif, it’s just a sneeze.”

She raised the brow higher.

He grumbled something to himself and focused intently on cutting his meat into tiny even pieces.

Loki disappeared before the meal was over, and Sif was surprised to find him in bed when returned to their chambers. When she inquired about it he mumbled an offhand comment about being tired and sore.

 “You’re not getting sick, are you?” she asked as she slid under the covers next to him and performed her nightly ritual of warming her freezing feet on the back of his calves.

“Don’t be silly Sif. The Jötnar don’t get colds.”

“And you know this, do you, from your extensive personal experience with Jötunn medicine.”

He elected not to reply.

“The Aesir get colds,” she pointed out.

“Yes, but rarely.”

“And you’ve gotten a cold before. I remember when we were children and both you and Thor got sick at the same time and I had no one to play with for a week because my mother forbade me to visit. She only relented because the queen asked her to. I thought your mother would have strangled you if she hadn’t. Neither you nor your brother were easy patients.”

Loki dismissed the memory as irrelevant. “We were children and therefore susceptible to illness. I’m an adult now and haven’t been sick in centuries. Like I told you, I’m just tired and a bit sore. You wore me out today.”

 “What are you talking about? We had one sparring match in the training ring today, and then you disappeared to the library.”

“Yes, but I wasn’t talking about _that_ kind of sparring.”

“Well if you’re so tired then I guess we’ll just have to forego any _sparring_ tonight,” she teased.

She waited for him to say something inappropriate and delightful. When he didn’t respond she propped herself up so she could see his face. He was asleep.

Oh well, perhaps they could have a match in the morning. She snuggled up to his back and soon joined him in slumber.

~

Sif returned from her early morning training session to find that while Loki _had_ moved since she left it was only to burrow even more under the covers so that the only evidence of him was a prince-sized lump.

This was slightly unusual—usually he would be up before she left and be off doing whatever it was he did in the library when she returned. If she had left him sleeping she either returned to find him gone or he was waiting with a drawn bath and a leer. She quickly bathed, dressed, and went over to poke the lump. It moved slightly. She poked it harder.

“Ow, Sif!” came a muffled cry. She grinned, and poked it again for good measure.

“Get up lazybones, you owe me a sparring match.”

The lump mumbled something unintelligible.

“What was that? I can’t hear you through eight layers of covers.”

The lump grew a face.

“I donb feel very gub.”

If the nasally tone of his voice didn’t clue her in to that, he truly didn’t _look_ very well either. His face was paler than normal and covered in a thin sheen of sweat, his eyes were bloodshot with large, dark circles, and his lips were chapped and raw. Still, Sif wasn’t known for her sympathy; she laughed. Loki glared and once more disappeared under the covers. She poked him again.

“I _told_ you that you would get sick. ‘Oh no Sif, don’t be silly! Frost giants can’t get colds! What? These classic symptoms of an oncoming cold I’m displaying? Oh it’s definitely _not_ a cold!’” she sang in a rather poor imitation of his voice.

Once again the lump grew a face.

“It’s nobt funny. I can’t breeb and ebreyfing hurts. There must have been some sort ob dangerous toxin in the ponb.  Feel my foreheab. What if I’m dying?”

Sif doubted that, but obediently pressed her lips to his forehead. Loki _did_ feel warmer than usual. Normally his skin was cooler to her touch; now it almost burned.

“Well I’m sure it’s nothing, but since you will most definitely complain until I do, I’ll fetch a healer.”

~

Sif had expected one of the higher-ranked healers to come; Loki was after all a prince. But still she was surprised when Queen Frigga and Eir herself burst the room, trailed by an assortment of junior healers and handmaidens.

“Oh my poor dear, are you not feeling well?” Frigga asked, sitting on the bed and putting a gentle hand on Loki’s brow.

“Yes Mober,” he answered weakly, much more pathetically in Sif’s opinion than he’d been only minutes before.

“Well let’s see what the matter is.”

Frigga and Eir got to work. Sif mostly stayed out of the way as junior healers bustled about mixing herbs with hot water and handmaidens fetched a large supply of soft handkerchiefs, a heavy down comforter and extra pillows for the bed. One brought in a large tureen of delicious-smelling soup that made Sif’s stomach rumble; she had not yet broken her fast. When asked for a bowl the young woman tartly informed her that it was for the _patient._ Sif was reminded that one of the reasons she had risked everything to train as a warrior instead of remaining in her position as an attendant of the queen was her penchant for getting into fights with the other attendants.

Eventually after much prodding, Eir announced that it was “just a cold” and the prince would be fine after a few days of rest and plenty of liquids. Sif felt a knot of worry loosen in her chest. While she was mostly certain that Loki was exaggerating his symptoms for the sympathy of others she would not have been able to live with herself had she been that callous in the face of an actual serious illness.

Loki, however, frowned at the healer’s diagnosis. “I’m a jötunn. How can I possible have a _cold_?”

Eir laughed. “Don’t be daft; you know that’s not how illness works. Now this will help bring the fever down. Other than that, rest, drink plenty of fluids, and limit your magic use. That energy needs to go to healing, not mischief,” she admonished.

With that she and the queen gathered up their entourage and left. Sif helped herself to the leftover soup. It was _delicious_.

She was about to put her armor on again to terrify some new recruits but Loki’s hand shot out from under the covers and grabbed her arm.

“No, don’t leave me. What if I need something?”

She gently pried his clammy hand off her wrist. “Don’t be silly. You should rest, and you have at least three palace servants at your beck and call to fetch you whatever else you want or need.”

“But Sif, I need _you_.”

It wasn’t often that Loki admitted to needing anything, much less needing her. And he did seem rather pathetic, what with his pale face peeking out of the covers and his voice taking on a thin nasally quality from the congestion.

“Oh, fine,” she relented, and went to fetch her book from where she had thrown it the day previous. When she returned Loki was sleeping, mouth open and snoring lightly. She got comfortable on the divan and opened to the last page she had read; she was going to be there awhile.

~

Sif loved Loki, she really did, but she hadn’t realized how _boring_ it was to spend time with someone who wasn’t seriously sick. Watching Loki snore quickly lost its appeal, and she read more books in a day than she had in the year previous.

However, as soon as she made to sneak out and go to the training rings, or get fresh air, or join the queen’s weekly sewing circle (for certainly even that would be better than this), Loki would wake up, and pathetically call out for her and her battle-hardened resolve would crumple like the multitudes of handkerchiefs Loki had gone through in the two days he remained bedridden.

She loved him, she really did.

~

By the next day the rest and care seemed to have had an effect. Loki’s pallor was better, and he seemed to be breathing easier.

“Sif, I’m bored,” he whined, sounding for all the realms like a cranky little boy.

 _He_ was bored? She’d been stuck here with him for the last two days with only one—ONE—excursion to the training rings to break up the monotony of watching someone recover from a cold. At least he’d had a much-needed healing rest. Her brain and body were not made for this much idleness.

“Well what would you like to do?” she asked rather shrewishly.

The petulant look on his face morphed into a lecherous grin. He was definitely feeling better then.

She sighed and climbed into the bed next to him, rearranging them both so that she rested against the headboard and he was propped up on pillows near her lap.

“No, we’re not doing that.”

In response Loki turned his head and blew a raspberry into her side. She squirmed and shoved his head away, grabbing one of his heavy books off the nightstand to protect herself from further unprovoked acts of tickling.

“Here, I’ll read to you.”

Finding the scrap of parchment he used as a bookmark, she opened it and stared down at the engraving of some sort of hideous demon devouring a small child. She struggled through some of the ancient runes that captioned the image before slamming the book shut.

“Right, how about my book?” She had finished _The Art of War_ and had just started on a book included in a selection the lady Pepper had sent to her, about a soldier fighting in one of Midgard’s great wars.

“No, no, books. Tell me a story.”

Sif thought of all the stories she could tell—tales of near-defeats and great victories in battle, fables her mother had told her as a child, the diverse histories of the realms—before deciding on sharing a new one.

“Once upon a time,” she began as the old Midgardian tales did, “there was a prince. A very clever prince, smarter than all of his tutors certainly, with a penchant for using his wits to cause mischief…”

~

Loki woke up feeling better than he had in days. He inhaled deeply, reveling in the feeling of breathing without congestion or a fit of coughing. The aches and pains were gone, and he felt rested and refreshed and ready to take on all nine realms. He took a long bath to wash away the dirty feeling of sickness and emerged prepared to finally take Sif up on her sparring challenge.  

She was still sleeping, huddled under the covers. Thinking to pay her back for her own abuse days earlier, he gave her side a sharp poke. She moaned and rolled over to face him.

“Oh Loki, I donb feel very gub.”

 


End file.
